Friday, July 8, 2011

Doré's London

Pottering around the house. Thomas is home from school so A & N latch on to him. He's incredibly kind and tolerant of them - two girlsand three years his junior - playing with him all day. Margaret has also arrived from her convent (properly termed 'community') in Rome, so there's lots to catch up there. And I find time to read what was part guidebook and part coffee-table book, Gustav Doré's and Blanchard Jerrold's "London", originally published in 1872. Most of us are familar with Doré's fabulously grim etchings of London sqalour but I'd never read the (florid) text by Jerrold; nor had I realised that much of the book captures the other side of London: the annual boat race, horse-racing, ladies parading in parks etc.